The Daily Breeze's Sam Gnerre looks at the way we were in the South Bay

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Monthly Archives: July 2010

In this 1988 file photo, the deserted housing development west of LAX can be seen to the right of the shoreline, between Vista del Mar and Pershing Drive. Imperial Highway runs across the bottom of the photo.

It was originally a picturesque housing development, this plot of land west of Los Angeles International Airport between Imperial Highway and Playa del Rey and just across Vista del Mar from the beach.

The development firm of Dickinson & Gillespie began offering lots on the property, which it called “Palisades Del Rey,” in the early 1920s. Frank Lloyd Wright is said to have designed some of the houses, and film director Cecil B. DeMille was an early resident.

Residents of the Surfridge housing development remember their seaside life fondly. The area’s occupants described a rather idyllic existence at the seaside enclave, especially in the early years before the airport began to encroach upon the area.

As former resident Gerry Cully told Daily Breeze reporter Ian Gregor in August 2000, “It was a delightful place to live, kind of like the French Riviera, because you had all these old homes and it was pretty isolated, you see. It was like being on vacation every day living around here.”

Concerned about safety and noise issues, LAX began buying up the Surfridge homes in 1965. For the next 13 years, the airport bought 924 properties covering 248 acres for a total of $56 million. Then they began the process of either moving the houses or razing them.

The winding, empty streets with occasional foundations, crumbling walls and lampposts – Sandpiper, Jacqueline, Kilgore and the rest – were all that remained once all the houses had been removed by 1978. A modern-day ghost town had sprung up.

Plans were made. The Airport Commission and the city of Los Angeles both signed off on the Airport Dunes plan in 1983. It provided for a 27-hole championship golf course, with some 80 acres set aside as a nature preserve for the endangered El Segundo Blue Butterfly and other threatened local animals, insects and plants.

But environmental concerns led to the Airport Dunes plan being nixed by the California Coastal Commission.

Similar plans resurfaced in 1990. This time, the wildlife area would be doubled in size and the golf course portion scaled back to two 9-hole courses on 120 acres in the northwest corner of the property, with profits from the golf used to fund the wildlife preserve. Critics still balked at the proposal and it ended up in limbo for several years.

During this time in the early 1990s, a dedicated group of environmentalists obtained a $430,000 state grant and began the painstaking job of revitalizing the preserve, removing non-native plants and carefully tending to the remaining indigenous wildlife. Emphasis was given to restoring the coastal buckwheat plant favored by the El Segundo Blue. By 1993, the 200-acre site was completed.

An El Segundo Blue Butterfly lands on a coastal buckwheat flower in this file photo. The once-endangered insect species has thrived in recent years.

Another version of the plan resurfaced in 1996, but nothing ultimately came of it. The streets were blocked off after the area began to attract sightseers and Sandpiper Street began to be used as a lover’s lane. After 9/11, access to the area was restricted further for security reasons.

The El Segundo Blue Butterfly has thrived at the wildlife preserve over the years. In July 2009, the butterfly population that once had dropped to an estimated 500 in 1976 had reached an estimated 70,000.

Other than the butterflies, the area remains desolate. A small two-acre park was built across from the beach, but the rest of the land remains undeveloped — for humans, anyway.

One of several deserted, fenced-off streets that intersects with Vista del Mar.

On September 2, 1957, the city of Torrance opened Sea-Aire Golf Course, above, a small, lushly beautiful pitch-and-putt course at 22730 Lupine Avenue in the Seaside Ranchos area in the southern section of the city. It would turn out to be the only public golf course in the city to date, though not for a lack of trying. (A private nine-hole course that operates at the New Horizons senior housing development opened in 1965.)

Ever since the 1950s, efforts have been made to develop a new public golf course in the city, but none have come to fruition.

In 1958, a serious push was launched to build a golf course at the Entradero Sump site in west Torrance. The city’s parks and recreation commissioners at the time envisioned either an 18-hole par-three course, or a 9-hole course with a driving range.

Dr. Cecil Hollingsworth of the National Golf Foundation, which at that time was operating Alondra Golf Course on county land just north of Torrance, said his group would consider developing the site. Occasional flooding of the sump was not seen as a detriment: “It might even work to an advantage, because flood water could be used as a course hazard,” he was quoted as saying at a parks commission meeting in Sep. 1958.

Unfortunately, the Torrance City Council did not agree. After listening to protests from area residents, it voted down the proposal on July 14, 1959 (see clip, left, click to enlarge).

The next groundswell to build a municipal golf course came in July 1964, when Torrance City Manager Edward Ferraro began studying the possibility of building a course on the 185-acre site owned by Chanslor-Western Oil Co. This land had been designated as the future site of South Bay State College.

The parcel was located north of Sepulveda Avenue between Crenshaw Boulevard and Madrona Avenue. We now know the site as the location of Madrona Marsh and several condominium developments.

South Bay State College would evolve into California State University, Dominguez Hills in Carson.

As for Ferraro’s golf course proposal, it whipped up some enthusiasm, including an endorsement from Mayor Albert Isen. The South Bay Golf Association was formed to support the idea, and the city appointed George Post to head the 15-member Torrance Golf Course Advisory Committe on the topic.

Once again, though, the course never was built. A more detailed study by Ferraro’s office indicated that costs to purchase the land and build the course would be far higher than first anticipated. It would have involved using money from the city’s general fund, something to which the city council was opposed. In addition, Chanslor gave no indication that it was interested in selling the land. By January 1965, enthusiasm for the proposal had faded.

Within months, though, the backup site near the Torrance Municipal Airport that also had selected as a possibility began to come under serious consideration. Developer Dan Butcher owned the 246 acres between 235th Street and the airport. He first proposed building a cemetery there, a facility that Torrance does not have to this day.

The debate over the Butcher site would continue for four years. The cemetery proposal was rejected in November 1966. The council voted to let Butcher’s golf course land offer expire in June 1967, but discussions, feasibility studies, offers and counter-offers continued until mid-1968. Butcher was never able to assure the city that the golf course venture would be able to pay for itself, so ultimately no action was taken on it.

Since then, no serious efforts to build a public course have been made in Torrance, probably due to the lack of available land as the city’s development increased, and the high cost of the land that did remain.

Two efforts on the city’s border have been made in recent years. One proposal for the county to build a public course on the site of the Palos Verdes Landfill in Rolling Hills Estates near Torrance’s southern border did not come to pass. The plan was abandoned in April 2006, after years of debate.

A second proposal that would replace the current Rolling Hills Country Club course with a new course at the site of the Chandler quarry and landfill in Rolling Hills Estates is still in the development stage. The Chandler Ranch project would involve a 28-acre piece of land in Torrance that would be swapped with Rolling Hills Estates if the golf course/housing project wins approval.

A golfer prepares to tee off on the first hole at Sea-Aire Golf Course in Torrance. It remains the only public golf course in the city.

It’s a 3-square-mile city with no public streets, only private roads. None of its lots are zoned for business, commercial or industrial use, only residential. All of its houses are single-story, and must be painted only one color: white. It has no public infrastructure: no storm drains, sidewalks, curbs or sewers. Its police and fire services are provided by Los Angeles County.Sound primitive? Welcome to Rolling Hills.Its 1,908 residents (as of July 2008) are among the wealthiest in the U.S. According to 2008 figures, the city’s median household income is $263,908, and the estimated median house value is $2,607,252.Entrance to the city is controlled by means of gates manned with security guards, and outsiders are not allowed to enter without permission from the city resident they plan to visit.

It all began when Beverly Hills landscape archtiect A.E. Hanson was tapped by landowner Frank A. Vanderlip Sr. to develop a community on part of the 16,000 acres of Palos Verdes Peninsula land that Vanderlip had acquired in 1913.

This early brochure promoted the dude-ranch concept in Rolling Hills. (Photo from Rolling Hills: The Early Years by A.E. Hanson.)

Hanson began his task in March 1932. He attempted to sell the idea of developing the city’s large lots into single-family vacation dude ranches. That idea evolved into a development with one-story luxury homes with room enough to keep and ride horses. The minimum lot size was one acre of land.

Hanson sent out 10,000 postcards in 1940 advertising Rolling Hills land (see above, click to enlarge), but claimed to have not gotten any responses.

In 1935, the city’s first gatehouse was built at the intersection of Palos Verdes Drive North and Portuguese Bend Road. To this day, it is the main entry gate to the city.

The main gatehouse to the city of Rolling Hills in a July 2010 file photo.

For awhile, it also served as the city hall and community center for Rolling Hills. A new city hall built just across the street was dedicated in April 1967.

Rolling Hills officially became an incorporated city on Jan. 24, 1957. The incorporation election was held on Jan. 8, 1957. The vote was 408 for incorporation, and 126 against, a 75.3 percent turnout of the city’s 712 elegible voters.

Rolling Hills City Hall is situated just outside the city’s main gate. (July 2010 file photo.)

At the time, the city claimed to be the only fully gated city to be incorporated in the U.S.

Organizers of the incorporation claimed it was necessary to retain the city’s unique identity and to preserve it from annexation attempts by surrounding cities.

Two governing bodies regulate Rolling Hills: The City of Rolling Hills is governed by 5 council members with a rotating mayor, and a city manager, while the Rolling Hills Community Association supports and maintains the guard houses, community areas such as tennis courts and horse trails. The RHCA also has architectural authority over home construction in order to maintain the one-story ranch house flavor of the community.

As for Hanson, he also developed a similarly themed city in the San Fernando Valley, Hidden Hills, beginning in 1950. It also featured bridal trials, white three-rail fences and no sidewalks or street lights. Hidden Hills became an incorporated city in 1961. Hanson died in 1987 at 92.

When Steve Yancy, 51, of Torrance, died six weeks after an explosion and fire at the Fletcher Oil and Refining Co. plant in Carson in 1969, the last hope of finding the cause of the $1 million disaster died with him.

He was the second person to die in the blast and ensuing fire on Thursday, March 27, 1969 at the refinery at 24721 S. Main Street, just north of Lomita Boulevard. Truck driver Myron Chase of Petrolane Transport Co. died at the scene.

An additional 154 people, including both refinery workers and spectators at the scene were injured. All but about nine of them were treated at area hospitals and released.

Officials first thought that a spark during the unloading of Chase’s tanker truck into a giant tank at the refinery had caused the blaze, which began with an explosion at 5:27 p.m.

After an intensive investigation, officials ruled that a nearby 30,000-gallon tank in the same area burst for an unknown reason. The rupture caused the lid of the tank to blow off and fly about 700 feet in the air, landing in the middle of Main Street.

This photo diagram from the May 12, 1969 Daily Breeze shows the sequence of events in the Fletcher Oil refinery explosion and fire. Click to enlarge.

Two backup systems that would have stemmed the disaster failed to work, and the conflagration was on. In total, four tanks went up in flames following the blast.

By 9:30 p.m., firefighters had brought the intense flames under control. Another flareup at about 10:00 p.m. was knocked down, and the blaze was controlled completely just after midnight.

One of the men injured in the refinery blaze, Charles H. Sallee of Torrance, received credit for greatly minimizing the scale of the disaster. Following the initial explosion, he picked himself up and struggled into the control center building, where he was able to shut down operations at the plant. This prevented the fire from destroying the entire plant and its storage facilities.

Daily Breeze, March 28, 1969, Page 3.

Investigators had hoped that the seriously burned Yancy would be able to provide answers that would help determine the cause of the blaze and the reasons that the backup controls failed, but he never became well enough to answer questions. He was transferred to the burn unit at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance where he appeared to be recovering, but he died there on May 12, 1969.

The Fletcher Oil plant continued to operate after the 1969 disaster, but a growing chorus of environmental complaints that included noise, air pollution and noxious odors led to an organized campaign by nearby homeowners to shut down the plant.

The plant did close briefly from Nov. 1991 to April 1992. It then reopened for several years until it finally closed for good in the late 1990s.

The 36-acre site was purchased by the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County in 2000 for $14 million. The site is being cleaned up to remove soil and groundwater contamination left by the Fletcher Oil operation and the Sanitation District plans to build new regional wastewater treatment facilities there in the future.